My Father's House
by tyrsibs
Summary: Bobby's house wasn't haunted. At least, it wasn't, until he met the Winchester boys, who have a way of stirring things up and raising ghosts that he'd spent a lifetime burying. (Spoilers for Bobby's backstory, especially 3x10 and 7x10) A/N: For LJ's 2019 SPN Reverse Bang, and written for twisted slinky's lovely, melancholy work ml)


Bobby Singer stood in the Sioux Falls cemetery and breathed in the deep green air. "Those boys," he said. "I wish you could see 'em, Karen. Hell, every time I see them, they're outgrowing their pants and got holes in their sneakers. Scrawny little cusses, both of them, they come in, eat my food and run around the junkyard like they think they're at Disneyland or something." He paused, glancing away from the headstone in front of him, towards the cemetery gate. A car passed by on the quiet city street, then he was left alone with the sighing wind again. "I think you'd like them. And they sure could use you around. I'm not much good to them, just an old junkman myself—"

He reached out and brushed his fingertips across the polished granite at the top edge of the stone. It was cold to his touch, and didn't warm as he stood there, with his head bowed, waiting for a response that he knew wouldn't come. _Just an old fool_, he thought.

He heard the footsteps and stepped away from the stone, but he didn't look up. He already knew the sound of those feet, beating out a rapid heartbeat of a rhythm in their too-tight shoes. Still, he couldn't help the little grin that stretched across his mouth when he heard Dean call out, "Sammy! Leave him alone!"

The older boy had to have just rounded the corner gate, but he kept calling after the little guy that Bobby could now see, just a blur of red out of the corner of his eye. "He doesn't want your sticky ice cream hands all over him!"

Sam laughed and Dean took off after his brother, his feet pounding at the grass, countering the lighter, faster steps of the younger boy. Bobby turned in time to see Dean reaching out to grab at the back of Sam's sweatshirt, much to Sam's displeasure. He got even madder as Dean began scrubbing at his face with his own jacket sleeve. "Dee-an—cut it out!" He squirmed, for what good it did him. "Bobby! I'm not sticky! Dean's just being—ow!"

"Alright," Bobby said. "That's enough for now. I got some Kleenex in the car—it can wait."

Dean threw his arm, chocolate stained sleeve and all, up in the air in silent protest, but he let go of Sam's hood all the same. The younger boy stumbled at the sudden loss of something to fight against, and Dean's hands shot out again to brace him up.

Bobby turned away, taking care that the boys didn't hear his chuckle.

Sam approached Karen's stone, and Bobby saw his lips moving. He sounded out the letters in a soft whisper, "Ka-ren Sing-ng-er. Singer! Bobby, is that your mom?"

"Be quiet, Sam," Dean muttered, mostly to himself. He crossed his arms and sidled up to Bobby's other side.

"Nah." Bobby tried for nonchalance. "I buried my mom in another state. Karen's—Karen was my wife."

"Oh." Sam considered this new little fact about his pretty-new acquaintance and caretaker. "Why's she here?"

"Sammy—" Dean said under his breath in an exasperated tone.

Bobby put up his hand. "If it's all the same to you, Sam, I'd rather tell that story another day." He looked down at the six-year-old's furrowed brow as the boy's mouth opened up, most likely to ask another question he didn't want to answer. At his side, he felt Dean tense and lean forward, just a bit, to gaze at his little brother.

Sam shook his head, but his mouth closed. He shrugged, and Bobby was startled when he shouldered his way under his arm. "OK," he said, staring down at the stone as if Karen might tell him the story instead of the Singer standing next to him.

Bobby drew him in for an awkward hug, and put a cautious hand on Dean's thin back. "Guess it's time to head on home-?" The boys turned towards the gate with him, and not another word was spoken until they had all piled into Bobby's old Chevelle.

The bedroom door was uncharacteristically closed, making the still night even darker and covering the ceiling in gloomy overhead shadows when Bobby opened his eyes to find himself awake for some damn reason. He listened to the night intently, until the hallway boards outside his door creaked with the unfamiliar, but not unwelcome, sound of kid-sized footsteps. From the weight of them, he guessed Dean was up, and he relaxed some more, idly wondering if he should get himself out of bed to check on the boys. He decided to wait.

Instead, he sighed and turned his body towards the door. He heard the water come on in the little bathroom at the end of the hall, and grimaced at the thought of how shabby that room had become, almost as if it, and the rest of the house, missed Karen as much as he did. The water changed tone as he listened, became the filling up of a glass, before it shut off. Dean's footsteps came back down the hallway, more slowly this time. Bobby guessed he was trying not to spill. Fingertips brushed the doorframe as he passed, and then came Dean's voice, quiet, tired, and cranky. Sam answered after a bit.

Bobby closed his eyes after the glass clunked onto the scarred dresser he'd hauled into the room he'd put them in. The boy's door closed and he wasn't too surprised to hear their lock snick into place. This was only the second time they'd stayed overnight in his house, after all.

"Bet they wouldn't lock themselves in if you were around-" he told the empty side of his bed. A pair of boards out in the hall creaked and groaned as if in response, but the voice that answered him in his head wasn't Karen's.

It was a hard male whisper. _"Course they lock you out, boy. They already know you. You break everything you touch."_

He opened his eyes, and the floorboards cracked outside his door as his father's voice finished with an unamused snort. Bobby knew that it was going to be a long night.

Bobby stopped halfway down the stairs in the early morning, and watched the edge of kitchen floor that he could see over the banister. Someone was already up, and he didn't think it was one of the kids. A shadow moved back and forth across the pattern of light that the sun made, streaming through the kitchen window, and he thought he heard footsteps, long and heavy, somewhere beyond the yellow patch of light. Maybe John had come back early for his boys?

No. He'd called from California, just last night, to let Bobby know that his unpaid babysitting duties wouldn't be ending for another four or five days. The shadow crossed the floor again, for all the world like a pacing dog measuring the corners of its pen.

_Dad used to tramp across the floor like that_, he thought, and grimaced as the memory flooded in. His father, a drink in his hand, pacing as he worked himself up into a fit over his boss's stupidity, his wife's neglect, or his son's lack of respect. Until the bottle or glass or whatever he was fueling himself with would hit the table. And then Bobby had to make himself scarce, or try to stand in front of his mom, or—

Something landed on the table, just out of his line of sight, with a soft clunk. He heard the clatter of ice cubes hitting glass.

And a stair creaked behind his back. Fingers lightly, tentatively, brushed his shoulder.

Bobby's eyes opened wide with his gasp, and he spun, almost falling down the stairs in his haste. He grabbed the banister to keep from breaking his fool neck and raised his other palm up in the air, ready to lay into whatever had snuck up behind him. Dean stood there, level with his head, his own hand pulled back as though he'd touched a hot burner. He lowered his hand, ashamed.

"Bobby—you ok?" The boy whispered.

"Yeah." He cleared his throat and turned to look back down the stairs at the lengthening patch of sun. The kitchen floor was quiet. "Didn't sleep too good is all. Your brother still in bed?"

"Uh-huh."

Bobby backed down a couple of steps. "Why don'tcha go wake him up for me? I'll start on some pancakes."

"-Kay." Dean still sounded uncertain, and Bobby couldn't blame him for that, but he hotfooted it up the stairs all the same. He heard the groan of the bedroom door hinges just as he reached the edge of the kitchen linoleum. He stopped on the threshold and peered into the room. _Old fool_, he thought again, not for the last time in his life. It was empty, of course. There was nothing on the old formica tabletop. He ran a hand over his face. It was empty, he was sure of it. His old man wasn't there, couldn't be there. He'd burned that bastard's bones himself.

Bobby's mom hadn't kept them in this house very long after that night, the night he'd taken his .22 up in shaking hands and made sure that his dad would never hit either one of them again. She'd pushed away their Sioux Falls acquaintances with some cock and bull story about Ed driving off in the middle of the night, then packed their old truck up and moved them to her home town in Ohio, where her lie became family history. She never sold the place, though, and Bobby knew that this was not just to keep his old man's grave quiet and undisturbed where it lay behind his tool shed. In her own way she was letting him know that she would not forget what he'd done. She held on to the land that hid his deed, and she did not forgive her son for his sin.

Bobby pulled the coffee cup closer to his chest, only glancing up when Dean led Sam out the backdoor to play in the yard. The kid hadn't said much this morning, except to ask permission to clear the table, though his little brother's lips were moving a mile a minute as he put his shoes on and followed Dean out the door. Bobby hadn't heard most of it, but it seemed to involve good hiding spaces, and whether or not a family could live out in the piles of wrecked cars without them knowing. At Dean's scoff, Sam protested that he'd heard people rattling around the junkyard yesterday morning.

"Those weren't people, Sam," Dean said. "Those were the rats. Really big ones."

"Yeah, right," Sam answered. The screen door banged behind them. "And I guess rats like to wear blue shirts-"

"Super rats, I'm telling you—" Their voices faded as they ran towards the maze of cars.

He took a sip of his almost cold brew, remembering the field of hay that used to grow behind the house where the heaps of cars now rested. When he and Karen had moved back here the house hadn't looked like much, in fact it was even worse than it looked now. But his wife wanted to be here, in the middle of the exotic Great Plains, and he never could turn her down. He told himself that maybe they could even make the old place over in their own image instead of his father's. Karen had set to work as he began building his business. In the end she had made them a pretty white-picket fence of a life in the middle of South Dakota's dry and windy plains, all while he buried his dad's grave under cars and bits of salvage.

He didn't know at first, though, that in the back of her mind she was creating a house for a family to live in. A family he couldn't give her. He wouldn't burden her with his sure-to-be failure as a father. So he had broken her heart, and then—

Well.

One of the first things he'd done, after Karen, after Rufus started giving him lessons in hunting in between cussing him out, was to dig up his old man's bones. Just to be sure. When he'd tossed the book of matches down on Ed's salted remains, he told himself that he didn't feel a thing.

He got up and dumped the cold coffee in the sink. The boys were nowhere to be seen out the kitchen window, but then he heard a whoop from out back—Dean, he thought—and he let out a breath he had not realized he was holding. They were fine. He could keep them fine for a couple more days. And maybe he could stop jumping at shadows in the meantime, too.

"You think it's that easy?"

The cup slipped from his hand and crashed into the bottom of the sink. His shoulders jerked up in shock. Bobby whirled around, knowing that, though it was impossible, he was about to come face to face with his dead father.

But there was no one there. "Cmon, you sorry sonavabitch," he heard himself mutter, and he didn't know if he was talking to himself or the old man. His eyes roved around the room. He took a step towards the doorway, but he stopped when his gaze fell to the bare floor by the side cupboard. Where his father had fallen, a bullet in his brain. Where his mother had cursed him with heavenly punishment. Bobby remembered the blood that stained her shoes as she stood there, her voice shaking, staring at him. He knew the blood was long gone, but he saw the shape of the puddle, could almost see the stain creeping towards him. He backed away from it.

The air thickened around him until he might as well be pressing through a vat of molasses. He smelled his father's whiskey hot breath before he heard him hiss, "Those boys. You gonna take care of them like you did me?"

"You're not—you can't—be here," Bobby spat out. His shotgun was five steps away, tucked up next to the screen doorjamb. He managed another step towards it.

"Face it, son, you're just like me. You gonna kill them, just like me? Like me—"

"Shut up." Bobby thought about the way the stock of his gun had almost slipped out of his sweaty hands that night, and he knew he would do it all again, if he had to. The same way.

The shotgun was four steps away and he leaned into the force that was keeping him from it, keeping him from the boys, too.

And then, as quick as it had come, the thick air was gone, and he was released. Bobby stumbled and fell to his knees. He could still hear his father's voice, low and angry, from somewhere behind him.

"The little shit," it said, and Bobby's heart froze at the familiar curse. "Messing with my things—"

A gust of air flowed past him, and he knew he was alone in the house. He took a deep breath as the terror he'd felt when he heard the old man's voice gave way to his own confusion. _How? What the hell brought him back? And how was he gonna—_

"Dee—aan!" Sam's shout knocked him out of his paralysis. The kid was calling from the back of the house, and he sounded half mad and half afraid. Bobby squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, trying to clear his head. _The little shit, his father said—_

His bruised knees protested, but he got himself upright and he lurched towards the door, still breathing hard. He almost forgot to grab the shotgun as he pushed at the screen door, but he turned back and grabbed it when Sam called again. With his knees shaking and his feet numb, only his bone-deep knowledge of his own house kept him from winding up face down at the bottom of the back steps. He took them two at a time, scanning from one side of the junkyard to the other as he searched for Sam or Dean.

Or the blue workshirt his father had worn that night-

Sam met him as he turned the corner of the house, the both of them running flat out. Bobby reached an arm out to the boy to keep them both from hitting the dirt. He grasped Sam's arm and leaned over the boy, a gesture that even to his mind was as intimidating as it was protective. "What's going on, son?"

Sam gulped. "We were playing hide and seek and it was my turn to look, but I couldn't find Dean in the yard, so I thought maybe he was in the garage, but he wasn't, and then I thought about the shed—"

"What shed?" Bobby's stomach bottomed out as the realization came that he already knew the answer. He tried not to shout, to shake the kid's arm.

"The brown shed behind your garage, with all the old saws and things—"

Bobby couldn't help the scowl that pulled down his lips. His father's tool shed. He said tightly, "That door is padlocked."

Sam looked down. "No, sir. It was, but Dean, he wanted to show me how he could pick a lock, and—"

"When was this?"

"Yesterday. I'm sorry," Sam hiccupped. "We shouldn'a gone in. But I didn't get to look in the shed, because when I got there, there was a man going in there, and I knew it wasn't you, and then there was a bang like something fell over, and I—I—"

Bobby straightened and looked towards the far corner of his yard. He couldn't see the shed from here, since the garage hid it from sight. He'd almost forgotten that it was even there. He and Karen never used any of his father's tools, and she'd never once asked him about that particular locked door. He looked down at his hand gripping Sam's arm, and let he let go, feeling a strange calm wash over him. This was a job. He had a job to do, and now he knew where to start.

"OK, Sam. It's OK. I'll take care of it. I'll find Dean, and kick that guy off my property." He squeezed the boy's arm gently, to reassure them both. "I want you to go into the house and lock the door behind you. Then check the front door. You know how to work the bolt?"

The kid shot him an incredulous glare. "Yeaa-uh—"

Bobby almost laughed. "Good. Don't open up for anyone but me or Dean. Alright?" Sam nodded and took off for the back steps, and he watched until he had slammed the kitchen door shut.

He sighed and squared his shoulders, walking quickly to the corner of the garage and pausing just long enough to see that the door of the shed was hanging open. As he walked, he broke open his shotgun to check the shells inside. Consecrated iron. They would do.

As he got closer, he saw a flash of blue in the doorway, and then he heard his father bellowing, practically howling. The form stuttered, solidified, its upper half still in shadows, but there was no mistaking that voice. His father's hands flashed in the light and grabbed something from the wall. The tool flew into the gloom inside the shed. "Hey!" Bobby yelled, and he started to run.

He was ten feet away from the gaping door when he saw his father's back shiver and flicker, the bellow cut short, his hands stilled. A booted heel began to turn towards the rectangle of light.

Then his ghost filled the doorway, staring out at him. Rivulets of blood ran down his forehead from the wound Bobby had given him, slipping across his cheek to drip down onto the pristine white of the nametag that Mom had once sewn onto his shirt. His old man's face was sallow, his eyes empty of everything but rage, and his mouth curled up into a grin. He raised a beckoning hand at his grown child, who was racing towards him with another weapon gripped tight.

And Bobby stopped, lifted the gun and shot his father again. Both rounds hit the back of the shed, and his old man disappeared with a shriek. Bobby ran on, right into the shed, through the spray of dust where his father had been standing. He had to put his free hand out to stop himself hitting the far wall, and then he looked into the back of the building.

In the shadows behind the workbench Dean crouched, clutching a crowbar like a baseball bat. Again, Bobby felt an almost insane laugh building up, but he swallowed and pushed it back down, out of respect for the boy who was staring defiantly up at him. These kids were something else.

He set the shotgun down on the tablesaw that sat just inside the door and reached out a hand to Dean. "Hey, kid," he said. "Cmon, let's go let Sam know you're ok."

Dean looked him up and down before he began to rise, relief as evident in his shoulders as Bobby could feel it in his own.

But his dad wasn't going to let them off that easily. As Dean took a step towards the door, he surprised Bobby by letting out a yelp and throwing the crowbar.

No, not throwing. The crowbar had been wrenched out of his hand, and it skittered under the bench on the other side of the little shed. Dean's eyes got wide, and he focused on something just beyond the older man's head.

Bobby's spine turned to ice, his breath to fog, and he felt the pressure on both sides of his temples, like someone was trying to pop him like a balloon. But that wasn't what the old man wanted. "Like me—" he heard again, and for a second everything was black.

And then he was staring down at his hands, and they weren't his hands. His eyes were not his eyes, but they stared at the kid trapped in the back of the shed with both annoyance and hatred.

The kid backed up, and Ed looked out through his son's eyes as the kid's hands ran over the workbench at his side. "How many times have I told you—" he took a step towards the kid, mostly for effect. He liked the feeling of control and power contained in the gesture. "—To keep your mitts off of my stuff?"

"Bobby—wake up," The kid said, and Ed did laugh at that. He saw the kid grab something from the shelf, and this enraged him. He stepped closer, banged his fist on the bench. The kid jumped. One more step and he'd be close enough to backhand the kid into the wall.

"I said—" Ed started, but his words were cut off with a choking snort. His son had surged forward, and Ed couldn't see the kid in front of him anymore.

Bobby's hands trembled, and he pulled himself away from Dean, but it was all he could do to hold on as his father fought to regain control. "Dean—run—basement, there's a stash of salt –take Sam—" His vision was getting dark again.

"No!" he heard Dean shout. A flash of pain slammed into his arm, and Ed let go with a last howl. He was gone. For the moment. Bobby looked up into Dean's face. The boy was breathing hard, and looked ready to sprint past him, but he held the iron wrench he'd just struck with steady in his grip.

"Ok—" Bobby panted. "Ok, son."

Bobby kept his hand on Dean's shoulder as they started for the kitchen door. They were almost to the corner of the garage before he knew for sure what he had to do next. He glanced over his own shoulder at the darkened shed doorway, still hanging open.

"I dunno how much time we have before he makes it back," he said, squeezing Dean's shoulder just a bit, hoping that maybe the boy would find that a comforting gesture. "So when we get inside, you and Sam head down to the basement. The salt bag is on a shelf just under the stairs—"

"No." Dean said again, and Bobby stopped walking. His hand slipped down to his side as he looked down at the back of the kid's head.

Dean took a peek around the corner at the house, and then turned to face the hunter head on. "He doesn't know, Bobby." The boy set his jaw in a stubborn clench, so like John that Bobby could have laughed if he hadn't just had to fight off his own father's grip. Dean's hands closed into fists before he glowered at the ground, then shoved them into the pockets of his baggy jeans. "He doesn't know about—any of this, and he's not gonna know." He raised his eyes and fixed Bobby with a gaze that was both warming and irritating. "Please?" he added.

Bobby sighed. "Well, c'mon, then. I'll see what I can do."

Sam didn't need much persuasion to unlock the kitchen door, flinging it open and practically tackling his older brother, which pushed them both out onto the steps where they almost collided with Bobby's chest as he came up behind. Dean snorted, but Bobby could see that he was hugging back just as hard as Sammy. "Hey, Squirt," he said. "Let me breath, huh?"

Bobby guided them both inside with a gentle push on Dean's back and shut the door behind them. He listened to the silent house as the boys broke apart.

Sam slapped at Dean's arm. "Why didn't you come out when I called? Who got shot? I heard a shot!"

Dean looked up at Bobby, who cleared his throat. "Nobody got shot, Sam. I fired a warning to scare off that guy you saw, and he took off." He steered around them and walked into his study, rubbing his hand over his eyes. _Charms_, he thought. _Got some iron charms somewhere in the desk._ He made it to his creaky old desk chair and opened a drawer, finding his bottle instead of his box of amulets and sigils. Without much thought to the time of day he cracked open the whiskey and took a long burning swig.

In the kitchen, Dean was telling Sam that he was sorry for scaring him. "I had the perfect hiding spot, though, right? You never woulda found me—till I was ready for you—"

Bobby set the open bottle on the desk pad and went for the long middle drawer, putting his hand in and poking around. He was pretty sure the box was in here.

"Uh-huh-," Sam said, and Bobby felt the corner of his mouth rise in a little grin at that. It was amazing to him how the little guy managed to lay so much sarcasm into such a little phrase.

The grin widened when his fingers found the little lockbox he was searching for. He pulled it towards the lip of the drawer, watching the boys out of the corner of his eye as he flipped the lid. They didn't seem to notice, caught up in a running stream of insults and teasing. He got the gist, he thought, that Dean had brought up the notion of walking down the dirt road that ran by the house, while Sam protested that the blue-shirted guy might still be around. Bobby's fingers found a bundle of iron discs.

Dean rolled his eyes. "He's long gone by now, Short Round, and anyway—"

"I'm not short."

The floorboards over Bobby's head gave a snapping crack, like a rifle shot, and his shoulders jumped up to his ears in surprise. Dean's eyes met his from the other side of the doorway. Bobby nodded at him, just a dip of his chin, and Dean faltered, but finished his sentence, though his voice wasn't so boastful now. "—no one's gonna mess with you while I'm around. He started to shepherd Sam towards the front door.

Bobby stood, the creak of the chair answered by another, softer crack from upstairs. "That sounds like a fine plan to me, boys."

Sam huffed, but allowed himself to be guided towards the front door, reaching it first and pushing with a bit of effort at the heavy screen door. As he turned his back, Bobby slipped two of the charms into Dean's hand. The kid looked surprised even as accepted them, but he nodded, and after a moment awarded Bobby with a quick grin.

"Hey, Sammy," he called, though the boy wasn't more than three feet away. "I'll race you to the river bridge." In response, Sam banged the screen shut between them and kicked his heel against it for good measure, his feet pounding down the wooden steps and into the graveled driveway. Dean took off after his little brother, sparing Bobby another look as he went out the door, the charms clutched in his fist.

Not for the first time, Bobby thanked Rufus Turner for turning him into a paranoid old bastard as he stood in front of his father's tool shed with a can of kerosene, a nearly empty tin container of rock salt at his feet. He hadn't needed to go down to the basement for these supplies. They'd been stashed behind the kitchen door right near the shotgun. He only wished he'd thought enough ahead to load up some rock salt rounds, but he guessed you couldn't have everything prepped ahead of time.

His father had harried him out to the shed, knocking him off his feet once, yelling his name in his ear, calling him "Punk!" "Killer!" and worse as Bobby opened the salt tin and began spreading it in the doorway of the shed and around the outside, following up with splashes of kerosene. His dad punched at his back, but the iron charm that now hung around his neck kept him from doing more damage.

Thwarted, the spirit screeched, "You think you're better than me?"

Bobby turned then. His old man flickered into view, pale and gaunt now, the blood on his face blackening on his cheek. As though he was weaker now. Or maybe scared. Bobby hoped the son of a bitch was scared.

"That ain't the question to ask me," he said. An acrid smile crawled across his face. "Between the two of us, though, who's about to be barbequed again? Huh?" He swung the tin of salt in a wide arc, catching the ghost in a spray of white crystals and making him scream as he disappeared into the wind.

He didn't know which of the saws or hammers his dad might have latched onto, anchoring himself inside the shed for all those years and waiting for a chance to lash out at his son. He couldn't even tell himself that he hadn't deserved at least some of what the old man had just put him through, but he blanched at how close Ed had come to hurting Dean, and he knew if he'd succeeded, that Sam would have opened the door for Bobby and met up with Ed, too. So he wasn't taking any chances now. He dropped the now empty can at his feet and dug out his lighter. It didn't take long for the dry wood soaked in fuel to catch. Once the shed was alight, he stepped back, just far enough to watch it burn.

Of course, the old bastard came back before the shed was gone, but now he was panicked, gasping and crying. Bobby didn't look when when the fire finally took him, but he heard it, a mournful cry cut short. His father's last hot breath burned the back of his neck as he turned to ash and smoke, bound for whatever hell was set for him. It didn't bear thinking of now. He was finally gone, though his voice, Bobby knew, would haunt his dreams for the rest of his life.

John returned to pick up his sons two days later.

They had left only a few hours ago, and soon after the big black car had carried them away, Bobby had fled his too-empty house for a supply run. He wasn't too shocked, though, to find himself back at the cemetery gate. He swung the wrought iron open and walked down the path, smiling as he remembered Sam's warm hug and stream of words that added up to "goodbye for now." Even more, he remembered the look Dean had given him, full of pride and conspiratorial fondness. He hoped he'd be seeing them again soon.

Karen's stone stood still and gray in the shaded grass. He knelt beside the marker, his memorial of another life, and reached out to touch her engraved name. The granite chilled his fingers. His mouth opened, but no words would come. He didn't tell her how quiet the place was now or how he planned to leave the boys' bedroom set up, just in case John needed him to watch them again. He didn't ask her why she'd never gone into the shed behind the garage, why she'd never even asked about it. He thought he knew the answer. She knew enough about his dad to reason that the old man would be a hard subject, and she knew enough about him to know that he would talk to her if he had to, or maybe he would have wound up knocking the shed down himself one day. He couldn't bring out the words, "I'm sorry" though they were there. He didn't say that he wished she were here to help him with this new burden of responsibility he felt, or to figure out just what those feelings meant.

He knelt, and touched her stone, and let a silent wave of regret and longing wash over him. "I miss you, so damn much," he finally whispered. It wasn't enough. It was the only thing left to say.


End file.
